


Piedmont Beta

by Dryad



Category: Aliens (1986)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 03:21:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11050251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dryad/pseuds/Dryad
Summary: It was dark, and cold, and stank of ozone and sulfurous bio-organics.It was the smell of home.





	Piedmont Beta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



Jeni raced down the corridor, the knot at the end of her braid bouncing against her back and reminding her of the time Jonny had worn that long necklace and forgot about it and freaked out thinking it was one of the tarantulas crawling on her instead.

"Stop that kid!" 

Heads turned, a few hands reached out but she was fast, real fast. She hurtled over an outstretched arm on a crouching man, ducked under the safety barrier, slipped on the top step and ended up bumping down the rest of the stairs on her bum. Momentum had her crashing into the wall feet first, body and head connecting in quick succession thereafter. It hurt a lot to get to her feet, pain streaking up her backside as she hobbled down the next set of stairs. Now was the time to be careful, the lights were either dim or flickering on this level. Still, she was familiar with her environs and didn't hesitate in limping as quickly as she could to the airlock. 

The only reason the light above the door was green was because that's how she had modified it to read. It had been her great fortune to wander down here - even though Aunt Ivy had said not to - when the workers were on their lunch break. The explosion that had taken out the corridor between Main and F Hab had also done great damage to the overall structure north of Main. 

At dinner the night of the explosion, Daddy had shaken his head. "That's what they get for using shoddy materials in the first place. Bellamy ain't shit for workers."

"Shhh!" Auntie Ivy leaned over the pot, forgetting to scoop stew onto Jonny's plate. She leaned right into Daddy's face. "You say that and they hear you and what then? You lose your job again? Get kicked down the ladder 'til you're just working in the recyclers? What then?"

Daddy put his head down, steadfastedly not looking at Auntie Ivy, seemingly not even bothered by what she was saying, but Jeni could see he wanted to. Auntie Ivy was right, though.

Jeni concentrated on eating her food as fast as possible, just to get away before Daddy exploded. He didn't shout much, but when he did, a person was wise to be sure they weren't the object of his attention. Even Jonny was quiet, though it took her a long time to eat if she wasn't being helped. 

"And another thing, I can't be expected to watch Jonny all the time, I've got a job, too, and I want to see Minho more than once or twice a week," Aunt Ivy turned and put the pot back on the stove before sitting down. "It's not fair, Eric, it's just no- "

"Enough," Daddy growled, quietly and firmly, still looking at his plate. 

Maybe Aunt Ivy got it, because she glanced at him with no little alarm, then started on her own food with wide eyes. Soon enough she started on Jeni and her grades, and then Jonny and Daddy shoved himself away from the table and took the remainder of his food into the lounge to eat. Aunt Ivy shook her head. "You can't pretend it away, girls. You have to face the facts, no matter how unpleasant they might be."

Two days later Jeni had ventured down the stairs on the pretense of not knowing they were closed, the crumpled green and yellow OFF LIMITS tape stuffed into her trouser pocket. The corridor had been cleaned up and was obviously almost ready to reopen. The airlock had been _locked open_ \- in a pissier mood, she might have called it in and shopped whomever had done the deed - and without really thinking about it, she had ensured it remained so. She was real good at Electronics, and Tutor Kuusinen said she was brilliant at Systems, though that was hardly stimulating. You just had to look for the break in the pattern, simple. Electronics was far more interesting, and you got to build things, win win.

Lying in her bed that night she was overcome with fear of what she had done. Fixing an airlock so it couldn't lock? A good way to kill everyone in F Hab. Being found out? Prison, or worse. What if they discovered she had done it? What if they wouldn't accept that it was one of the techs - nothing more than the truth...all she had done was make it permanent, more or less. _And_ she had included a failsafe, although admittedly it wouldn't trip unless the airlock on the other side of the umbilical locked. 

And if they asked her why she had done it, well...'because it was there' didn't sound as reasonable now that she was safe at home. Jeni had rolled over and decided she would undo her work in the morning. Probably. Maybe. 

Jeni slapped the door release and slipped through the opening as soon as it was wide enough, immediately turning and mashing her thumb on the close button a moment later. The door took its time in shutting, and she slouched against the wall, happy to have a quick reprieve from the consequences she faced. Oh, the window - she put her back to the door and pressed against it hard, hoping anyone who looked in the tiny square pf plasglass wouldn't be able to look down too far. The fact that she was also short for her age would work in her favor. She hoped.

She was pretty sure the door would read as being red-locked. On the other hand, had she ever tested it from this side of the door and a remote? 

N. O. P. E. 

She was an idiot, an _idiot!_. That was Safety one oh one. Forget that and you and everyone you knew might catch a bad case of death. 

Catching her breath took a minute; waiting to be discovered took an eternity. When nothing happened, however, she stiffly walked down the umbilical, the aches and pains of her run really beginning to make themselves known. Her bum was the worst, pain lancing up her lower back with each step she took with her right foot. Everyone was going to notice the way she was rocking from side to side, so she would have to come up with a good story...or did she? She could just tell the truth: she had slipped on some stairs. Yeah, that was it, the truth...more or less.

It probably wouldn't matter in the long run, anyway. She hadn't told anyone besides Jonny what she had done, and even then, she had made a point of whispering it into Jonny's ear.

The umbilical was due to be removed within the month, sooner if the work order came through on time. She knew because she had checked her father's work orders for this rota. Ultimately all of this running around was for nothing. She would never be able to boast about it to a friend, or show her work for extra credit, or even use it as away to finagle her way into a job. In the end, it was all about her own personal satisfaction...or something. All she really understood was that doing that had made her feel better about everything, even if only for a little while. Which was worth it, right?

Okay, okay. Now for the next part. Shaking her head at her stupidity, _again_ , because she had only just realized she didn't know where the umbilical ended, over in Main. Yeah, it gave temporary access between Main and F Hab, but did she know who actually used it besides maintenance? No. Did she know if there was a code to input to let herself out? Possibly. 

From where she stood, the other airlock was far, far away. The umbilical's lighting was practically non-existent, really consisting of nothing more than a few mesh solar panels in the 'roof'. Just bright enough to not leave the umbilical in complete darkness. Even knowing the assumption was the anyone who needed to use it would be hard suited...nah, it was Bellamy being cheap as shit. A soft sided umbilical in a downwell colony, used on who knew what kind of ground, or what kind of opposition the colonists might face? Jeni shook her head and gingerly stepped off the hard join. The 'floor' of the umbilical was ridged, but not in any kind of way that inspired confidence. It was a good thing she didn't weigh much and that she wore soft-soled creepers for shoes. 

Jeni crept forward slowly, her hands held out for balance, for the umbilical had ribs. She had found out the hard way, sprawling face first after tripping on one. Although the wind was beginning to howl outside in one of Piedmont Beta's regular storms, adrenaline was keeping her warm. The temperature had definitely dropped, though, and she was beginning to think that maybe she had done a really dumb thing after all. 

Eons passed before she reached the other airlock. Even standing on her very tippy toes, she could only just look through the window. On the other side of the door was a matte gray wall with some white text sprayed on it, too low for her to be able to read it. Nonetheless, it was a good sign. Text like that wasn't in well traveled areas of F Hab, so it probably would only be in emergency places in Main. Now for the real test.

After rubbing her hands together to warm them, Jeni felt on the left for the button panel. No touch pads here, these were proper panels that a person could push on if they were wearing gloves or only had the use of an implement, nothing that relied on blood warmth or electrostatic charges. Jeni had enough trouble with that at school. 

The umbilical was so old it didn't even have a cover for the buttons. Made her life easier, sure, yet another strike against Bellamy. For all of Daddy's talk, she was finally beginning to see he actually had a point to make, he wasn't just complaining. With any luck Systems hadn't been upgraded either…and yes, the buttons became backlit as soon as she pressed the ONE. Excellent, it was the standard ONE through NINE panel, plus ENTER and CODE and CALL and FIRE and AIR. She clucked her tongue to herself.

Good thing Aunt Ivy had taught her how to read, too.

Any poor sap who relied upon symbols would be dead. That wasn't her, though. She was smarter than that. 

Unfortunately she wasn't wearing her Electronics tools, nor did she have a Systems pad. That meant that as soon as she entered the code - assuming it worked - an alarm would trip in Command. Or Engineering. Or Security. Either way, she was going to have to skedaddle as soon as the door opened. Well, it was either that, or freeze to death, and she couldn't have Jonny going to bed without her twin being in the bunk above.

Jeni licked her lips and entered the code she thought would work.

The panel flashed red.

That was fine, there were plenty of others. She pressed in another one, and another, and another, until she was sweating with fear and her fingers were half numb from the cold. 

Okay, she wasn't thinking this through. She had used every single code she had ever seen in any of the dramas and thrillers Aunt Ivy and Daddy liked to watch, including _The Cold Equations_ , _Escape from Sleeper Cell 41_ , _My Name is Sprocket and I am Broken_ and of course _Memoirs Found in a Bathtub_.

Alright, she could do this, she would do this, she would. If the popular drama codes didn't work, then the techs must have had something else in mind, something easy for anyone to remember. Piedmont Beta was in the middle of nowhere, far from most shipping lanes, so anyone who had an emergency would have to be able to input a code that was obvious. The umbilical was old, older than the colony, so turn back fifty or sixty years, minimum. Anyone should be able to use the code...an idea struck her and she frowned. What would be the simplest code to enter? What could anyone enter, no matter where they were from, or what language they spoke? Numbers were symbols, so a person wouldn't have to be able to read to understand - surely not. Surely...if she was wrong, she was dead, end of. 

With her heart in her throat, Jeni pressed ONE TWO THREE FOUR in quick succession, followed by the ENTER button. When the door clunked, tears sprang to her eyes. By the time the door opened, she was practically sobbing with relief. She staggered into the corridor, wildly hitting at the panel on her left until her hand hit the lock symbol. All she wanted to do was collapse onto the floor and rest, but there was no time.

The text - it said THIS WAY - she had seen earlier came complete with an arrow, and she promptly headed in the other direction. With any luck there wouldn't be cameras in the ceiling to track her. She could find a place to hide, then make her way back to F Hab.

The corridor was long, and doorless. Finally she turned the corner and came smack up to another airlock. This one was just a regular door, however, made by Dhulipala Corp. and as such, she knew the bloody code. Peering through the window, she saw a _Night Kitchen_ opposite, the stall shuttered, a large sign on it reading 'CLOSED FOR RENOVATION'. Thank her lucky stars, she could walk right into a food court and go unnoticed back to F Hab. 

She happily punched in the code, and was so eager to get to onto the concourse that she didn't immediately recognise the rifle poking into her stomach for what it was.

"Stop right there!"

Jeni looked at the Marines surrounding her and felt no fear, only immense surprise. 

"Hands up!"

At first she stood still, then raised her hands so quickly she heard the click of a trigger pull.

"Christ, it's just a kid," someone muttered.

"That's enough, Parsons," barked the only person without a weapon pointed at Jeni, standing to one side of the door. She nodded at Jeni. "What's your name?"

"Jeni. Jenette Vasquez, F Hab," she said, her stomach souring as she realized how angry Daddy was going to be when he found out. "Are you going to tell my Dad?"

There was a sort of ripple of movement through the Marines, tension turning amused in the space of a heartbeat. 

"Are we, Sarge?" asked the Marine with the tip of his rifle at Jeni's belly. 

"Stand down, Allen. Vasquez, how old are you?"

"Fourteen, miss. Ma'am," she corrected, at the Sergeant's raised eyebrow. 

"What were you doing in that umbilical? You know it's only for techs."

"Yes, ma'am," said Jeni, thinking of her cover story and wondering if they would see right through it. "I - I got lost."

The Sergeant raised her other eyebrow.

Saying anything else would doom her, so Jeni said nothing.

"I'll have to report this to Security."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And there will be consequences."

"But I did it on my own! My family doesn't know anything!"

When the Sergeant didn't immediately answer, Jeni thought they might just release her with a warning.

"Kid showed some initiative," came another voice to Jeni's right.

"I like school," Jeni blurted, looking around fearfully. "I've got highest marks in the class in Electronics and Systems."

"And Mathematics?" asked Parsons.

Not so much with the math. "I passed."

Someone snickered.

"All right, all right, that's enough," barked the Sergeant. She put her hands on her hips. "You ever been in trouble before?"

"No, ma'am," And it was true, she hadn't. Been caught, that is. "My dad could lose his job, though. My sister has Pedersen Syndrome," she finished, because maybe that was enough to tip the balance in her favor.

The Sergeant nodded slowly. "Right. Well, I can't do anything about that - "

Jeni sensed a 'but'.

" - but maybe I don't have to go into too much detail about where we found you."

Out of the Sergeant's sight, one of the Marines winked and grinned, her teeth flashing white against the dark of her skin. Now Jeni noticed a couple of the others were also hiding smiles. 

"Marines, stand down. Allen, come with me. Gutierrez, get Sibley and lock this place down, then get Engineering and watch it while they fix it up. We don't want any more insurgents getting a whiff of the possible."

"Aye aye, ma'am!"

"Vasquez, this way."

The next few hours rushed by in a blur. Jeni was marched to Security and introduced to many people, all of whom eyed her with the same care she looked at a bug before squashing it. Names and faces all ran together by the time her father came to get her, and he was in a foul mood when they left. She dared one glance at his thunderous mien, and decided she would be quiet for awhile. 

They stuck out, walking through Main and back to F Hab. For the first time she realized how shabby their clothes were, though they were clean. Oh, of course she had always known they were poor, but in F Hab that didn't matter, so was everyone else, working hard for a chance at a better life for the grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. Nobody was going to walk on Piedmont Beta's surface without a hard shell for a long, long time, yet everyone she knew was more than willing to work for it. It wasn't going to happen in her lifetime, either, not without a miracle. How had it escaped her that not everyone in the colony was poor? Why would anyone with the chance to go anywhere else remain? She caught the gaze of a little girl riding her father's shoulders, wearing a bright yellow suit decorated with five big felt flowers, each made of giant petals in orange and pink, with green centers. That girl wasn't going to work in Electronics or Systems, Engineering or Food Service. Just for a second, Jeni resented her, then she shook her head. That girl would never know what it was like to smell the odor of a new planet early in the morning, never. She would get married and have children and do all the things her lovely family agreed she would do, and never live a life for herself. Jeni, in the meantime, could do whatever she wanted with the skills she had. Why, she could apply for work on Mars tomorrow! Or crew a merchanter and travel from world to world, colony to colony, living the high life...

"Get in your room, and don't come out until I tell you," Daddy growled, the first words he had spoken to her since they had left Main's Security office. 

Jeni did as she was told, standing in the middle of the room while Daddy not only locked the door behind her, but physically bolted it, too. She might be able to get past the lock, but the definitely not the bolt. She looked around the room, tired and exhausted, yet weirdly awake. Funny, when she had left this morning, helping Aunt Ivy bring Jonny into the bathroom, their room was cozy and comfortable, and everything within it was perfect, from the few books they had to Jonny's set of mini-hydraulic walker loaders. Their spare clothes - two sets of shirts and trousers, socks and vests, each - had been washed and neatly folded in the shelving stack. Their vid unit, scratched as it was, sat atop the single desk, angled just so. They could watch their dramas from their respective bunk beds.

After her adventure, the room was too small. The vid was dented, too, the picture only in black and white, and if she were to turn it on, she knew the sound would be tinny and terrible. The desk drawers were filled with a three broken pencils and scraps of real paper, a couple of energy bars and a bottle of water that still faintly smelled of the sulfurous pools it was taken from.

She slowly sat on the bottom bunk, on Jonny's sagging mattress and thought to herself, _I don't want to live here any more! _Jeni looked around and wondered what had changed from this morning to now. The room felt too small, her things pathetic, her whole existence of no consequence to anyone at all.__

__In a second she was on the verge of tears, with a lump in her throat. She swallowed it down, as usual. Aunt Ivy would say she was just feeling sorry for herself. Aunt Ivy would say she could get a job anywhere with her skills, and do anything she wanted, but now Jeni had been to Main and seen that it wasn't quite true. Chances were she would always be nothing more than a tech of some sort or another. And now she truly was feeling sorry for herself._ _

__Wiping her nose, she got up and went to check her messages. After Officer Metcalf's verbal lashing, Jeni had been told to expect the decision regarding her punishment via mail within twelve hours. At this point she just wanted to know, one way or another, what was going to happen to her. Hopefully just community service, nothing that would interrupt her schooling, which would make Daddy even angrier, because he paid a lot of money for Tutor Kuusinen._ _

__She sniffed, tapped the monitor and entered her personal code. The mail icon was blinking red; she tapped it with no small amount of trepidation. Surprisingly, it was not a message from Officer Metcalf._ _

__"Miss Vasquez - " The Sergeant looked at the screen as if she could see Jeni on the other side. " - I just wanted to let you know that if you can't find a place on Piedmont Bet or any other of Bellamy's projects, the Marines would be happy to have you. You've shown initiative and excellent thinking under pressure, all qualities of a good Marine. Keep out of trouble. Sibley says you're good, real good. Keep out of trouble and you'll go far."_ _

__The Marines...? Jeni had never considered the Military as part of her future._ _

__The Sergeant glanced up and nodded to someone out of sight of the monitor. She refocused on the screen, her brown eyes sharp. "If you want it, you've got it, kid. I know what it's like to live in a colony that's literally not going to see the light of day for a century or more, and my homeworld just had its bicentennial. You can always be a tech, but if you ever want more..." she smiled, ever so slightly, a bare upturn of her lips. "Call me. Sergeant Amanda Adeyemi, at your service."_ _

__The recording ended, leaving Jeni to ponder what she was going to do. It couldn't hurt to talk to Sergeant Adeyemi, even though the idea of maybe killing people didn't appeal. She wouldn't have to kill people, right? There were other jobs she could do...right? It was probably too late to call her back now, but in the morning - yeah, in the morning. She would get some rest, face her father and Aunt Ivy and Jonny. And then she would call and they would talk and maybe she had options she hadn't known about...maybe Piedmont Beta wasn't going to be all she knew after all._ _


End file.
